


As Long As You're Here

by thingsishouldntbedoing



Series: Serendipity!Verse [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsishouldntbedoing/pseuds/thingsishouldntbedoing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There would always be uncertainties. But at least Hanji wasn’t one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As You're Here

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a drabble within the universe of Serendipity (the MobuHan high school AU I'm working on) that I just had in my head but didn't fit into any particular chapter. 
> 
> tumblr: thingsishouldntbedoing
> 
> tracking: fic: serendipity

“Moblit! What are you doing up there?” Her voice came to me, sharp and clear with the faintest hint of a laugh.   
  
“Nothing! No girls allowed!” I replied, putting the last flourishes down on the paper before me.   
  
“What? Well it’s a good thing I’m not a girl!” I heard her climbing up the rope and slapped the notebook closed, scrabbling on my hands and knees to reach her as her hand emerged over the edge of my balcony.   
  
“What’s the password!” I couldn’t let her get by that easily, even as she swung precariously from the edge of the house, legs tangled around the rope that had led her to me.  
  
“Fiddlesticks…” she pursed her lips and I couldn’t help the bubble of laughter. “Aha! It’s _fractal_!”  
  
“What!? How did you know that?” The disappointment in my voice had her laughing.  
  
“You’ve been drawing them all week!” She laughed triumphantly, letting me pull her up onto the landing of the tree house. She was always into something new, something exciting: this week it was ballet. With her tights and leotard and tightly wound bun she clomped past me, goggles glinting around her neck and heavy wellingtons shaking the wooden floors beneath us. One day she’d shake the tree apart.

“Don’t stomp, Hanji!” I pleaded, hurrying after her, desperate to hide my notebook from her prying eyes. She was never one for privacy, and the thought of her ruining her own surprise had my heart racing.  
  
“What are we gonna do today? I saw some frogs by the sewage drain! Erwin said he wanted to dissect them but his mom called him home,” she flopped down on a beanbag, folding her arms behind her head with the pursed lips of disappointment I knew too well.  
  
“Well we could collect tadpoles?” I could feel a frown beginning when I saw something wrapped around her thin chest as she sighed, beginning to jabber on about _something_ but all _I_ wanted to know what was it was that she had tied to herself. “Hanji what’s that?”  
  
“... so I guess the hampsters are… huh?” She blinked, tugging at the string. “Oooh!” I couldn’t decide if I liked or hated the gleam in her eyes as she pulled the object from around her back. It clattered to the floor when she was free of the cord and I distinctly remember a spike of concern and some worried noises pressed against my fingers.

“Is that…”  
  
“It’s a human radius!” She announced, as if she hadn’t just thrown a _literal bone_ at my feet.  
  
“Hanji!”  
  
“What? It came from my skeleton! I took him apart today,” she said proudly. “With a pair of my dad’s pliers.”  
  
I almost couldn’t believe what she’d said. _Almost._ Coming from Hanji just about any story was likely to be true. Like the time she set free three hundred butterflies in the art room supply closet our senior year of high school, but that was a long time from now… and I had no idea then of what I know now.  
  
“So what’s it for?”   
  
“It’s my sword!”  
  
“For what?” I should have expected it.  
  
“Bonk!” She laughed, hitting me over the head with the plastic model. “Let’s go get snacks and then we should start a garden!”  
  
“A garden! We don’t have any of the stuff we need for a garden!” I protested. I don’t know why I ever bothered to argue with her.  
  
“Of course we do! We have dirt and seeds and water! What else do you need?”  
  
“I…” I wish I had a better argument for _why_ planting a garden at 9 years old was probably not a good idea. “Oh alright snacks it is…” I glanced over my shoulder for the notebook that would likely be abandoned there until Hanji went home for the night. _I’ll finish it one day, it’s okay._ I turned to follow her, listening to her cry _“Charge!”_ as she jumped off the railing.  
  
“Hanji NO!” I grabbed for her, watching her step off the edge of the tree house balcony like a diver jumping off the side of a boat in one of her ocean documentaries. Fear struck my chest, like they always say it does in the movies, and for a moment I could barely bring myself to look down-- then her laughter reached me.  
  
“Don’t worry about me! I’ll always be okay as long as you’re here to worry about me, right?” Her smile filled me with warmth. 

There would be many more of those moments. I was sure, even then.

 

* * *

 

“Moblit!” My mother’s summons reached me in my bedroom as I smoothed the paper out. Even now I could feel the fondness of my own smile, remembering how hard I had worked on this drawing-- only to never return to it. I suppose I had predicted that way back when: that I’d never finish her present. “ _Moblit_ ,” her voice drew closer and I had to blink away the mist from my eyes from remembering my childhood with Hanji. My childhood adventures. “Come on! Get a jacket!”

“What’s happening?” I hadn’t heard the panic in her voice earlier, leaping up to grab my jacket.  
  
“It’s Hanji! There’s been an accident!”   
  
Those words dropped my heart out of my chest like Hanji from our treehouse. I don’t remember how I moved as quickly as I did. Some strange combination of fear and cross-country training. I think runners should be required to face down the thought of losing their best friend. Then we’d see who was really the fastest.

I’m not sure how people in movies and television shows manage to get past the waiting room. I always saw them dramatically run in and smash through the doors, spreading them wide; as if causing a ruckus was the only way to show their love. As if the width of the doors could somehow enumerate the depth of their feelings.

I wasn’t sure there was any amount of yelling or door swinging that could begin to describe what I felt that day. Fourteen and terrified with my head in my hands, not knowing exactly what was going to happen when Hanji came through the door… if she did.

_If._ What a terrifying word in and of itself. Life comes in degrees of uncertainty. When, if, maybe… words that didn’t give you a sense of time or distance or measured coordinates; those were the words that make up a life. What if I had been there? What if I could have helped? If she would have just stayed home today this wouldn’t have happened. If I had been more determined to keep her home she would have been safe.  
  
 _If_ had always been Hanji’s word of choice.  
  
“Hey Mobster,” I heard her voice like a beacon in the fog, lifting my head to search for her in the waiting room.   
  
“Hanji!” I wasn’t sure about relief. Relief wasn’t the right word. I could see her arm, fresh in its cast, and the stitches just above her eyebrow. I could smell the sick stench of hospital on her skin and wished for a moment it would return to the earthy tones I knew so well as I let her rise to hug me, careful not to crush her arm between us. “What happened?” I wondered if she had any idea that my hands were shaking.  
  
“I slipped on ice outside of gymnastics, no big deal,” she said tiredly, as if these sorts of things happened every day. “I broke my first bone!”  
  
“But that means…”   
  
“Moblit… hey Moblit?” I didn’t have time to think. “Guess what bone I broke?”  
  
“I uh… I dunno? What kind of question is that! You broke a b--”  
  
“Bonk!” She hit me over the head with her cast gently, brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “I expect you to make my cast magnificent okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” I couldn’t stop the hot tears that gathered on my lashes and dripped down my face.   
  
“Don’t worry about me,” she wrapped her good arm around my neck and pulled my face against her collarbone. “I’ll always be okay as long as you’re here to worry about me, right?”

There would always be uncertainties. But at least Hanji wasn’t one of them.


End file.
